What ㎻ means
It means a nanowatt: one billionth of a watt.
In the International System of Units (SI), lowercase n means nano and uppercase W means watt. The case matters: NW is not the same unit.
Why is ㎻ a square?
The square packs nW into one full-width character cell.
㎻ belongs to a Unicode set of square Latin abbreviations for East Asian text. Korea's KS X 1001 character set includes it among unit symbols, and KS C 5601-1987 documents a two-byte computer-interchange setting.
The letters name the same measurement; the square changes the layout. Unicode's guidance favors ordinary letters placed in a square cell when available, so use nW in ordinary technical text. Keep ㎻ when a legacy document or exact compatibility character requires it.
How does ㎻ behave when text is normalized?
Compatibility normalization can replace it with the letters nW.
NFC leaves the square character intact. NFKC and NFKD are compatibility normalizations that change it to nW, preserving the unit while dropping the square-cell form. If an import, database, or search pipeline makes this change, the measurement has not changed.
Part of the collection
Don't confuse it with
2nW The difference between ㎻ and nW is layout: both denote a nanowatt, but ㎻ is the square compatibility form and nW is ordinary unit notation.
NW Uppercase NW is a different letter sequence. The unit uses lowercase n for nano and uppercase W for watt.
Questions people ask
2Why did ㎻ turn into nW
Expected normalization. NFKC or NFKD changes the square compatibility character to nW, preserving the unit while removing the square-cell form.
Why does ㎻ show as a box
Font coverage. A font without this character may show a missing-glyph box or another fallback mark. A font that includes ㎻ can display it.
More like this
9
How to type or find ㎻
- Search it as
- ㎻ · nW · nanowatt · nanowatt symbol · nanowatt unit · square nanowatt · square unit symbol
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
㎻\33BBnW for ordinary technical text; keep ㎻ when a legacy document or exact compatibility character needs the square form.Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.